Part 13

The Quartermaster Corps introduced endless economies in order to save wool. More economical patterns were made for uniforms. Originally 1.45 yards of cloth were required to make a pair of wool breeches. A cheaper cutting pattern reduced this figure to 1.222 yards, thus saving nearly a quarter of a yard of cloth on every pair. Since the purchases of wool breeches amounted to 10,300,000 pairs, this single economy resulted in a saving of over 2,300,000 yards of cloth on breeches alone. It was also found that cotton linings could be substituted for the wool facings of coats and overcoats without sacrificing either serviceability or warmth. Another important cloth economy came when the designers of the Clothing and Equipage Division eliminated the right-hand pocket of the “O. D.” shirt on the ground that this pocket was not used enough to justify the additional expense.

Americans have always believed, or pretended to believe, that, so far as the uniforms of our fighting forces are concerned, smartness is not essential. This is a mental attitude which we inherit, no doubt, from our pioneering forefathers, and which was strengthened by those Civil and Spanish War generals who tucked their trousers in their boots, pulled their slouch hats over their eyes, and wore handkerchiefs instead of collars. So, when the first contingents of the Expeditionary Forces set sail for France, we excused the obvious shortcomings of their uniforms by asserting that they “looked businesslike and American”—an assertion which was, however, open to some doubt. If our soldiers looked military—_and they did_—it was not because of their uniforms but in spite of them. No one recognized more quickly than the Commander-in-Chief of the A. E. F. that the uniform of the American soldier was lamentably lacking in smartness, a lack which was made painfully apparent when it was contrasted with those worn by the soldiers of the Allied nations. When, therefore, General Pershing recommended the adoption of a smarter-looking uniform, the Clothing and Equipage Division undertook to design one, with, incidentally, an eye to the saving of cloth. The coat of the uniform, formerly called the blouse—a ridiculous and inappropriate designation which is now obsolete—was cut with new lines which made it slimmer and more graceful while retaining all the warmth and comfort of the old garment. As the soldiers usually filled the patch-pockets of their old blouses with all sorts of articles they were usually unsightly bulges, but on the new coat the patch-pocket is retained only in appearance, the pocket actually being on the inside. It is not known to most Americans that the breeches which had been worn by American soldiers for twenty years or more have been replaced by trousers so far as the A. E. F. is concerned. The soldiers themselves were not particularly enamored of the breeches, which frequently caused chafing under the knee and always caused a burst of expletives when a man tried to put them on in a hurry. Moreover, it was often found impossible for the surgeons to remove breeches from a man wounded in the legs without cutting the cloth and thereby ruining the garment. All these objections have been obviated, however, by the adoption of trousers, which have the added value of increased warmth. Following General Pershing’s recommendations, the overcoat, which was much too long to be worn in the trenches, was redesigned, a new garment being evolved which was smarter and more practical. Other changes are the adoption of the spiral woollen puttee in place of the canvas legging and the substitution of the jaunty overseas cap for the impractical and universally unbecoming campaign hat.

The redesigning of the uniform—which, by the way, never appeared in the field—accomplished several surprising economies. Merely by the substitution of trousers for breeches, the lacings, eyelets, tape, and stays thus eliminated amounted to 95¼ cents on each garment, and had the war lasted until July 1, 1919, would have saved the taxpayer nearly $17,000,000 on orders placed or in sight. The change in the design of the overcoat saved 62 cents per garment—an estimated saving, by July 1, of nearly $900,000. It was found that the service coat could be made for $1.60 less than the old blouse, which by July 1 would have effected an economy of close to $5,000,000. The changes in these three garments not only gave the American soldier a much better-looking uniform but it saved the American Government enough money to build a first-class battleship, and, what was most important of all, it effected an enormous economy in the consumption of raw wool, which, once exhausted, could not be replaced with all the money on earth.

In making its earlier clothing contracts the government paid the contractor a percentage of the value of the yardage which he saved by his economy in cutting and it also permitted him to keep his own clippings. But later on, when the shortage in wool became more acute, the cloth issued to the contractor was calculated more closely, he received no credit for his savings, and all clippings had to be turned in. These clippings were sent to the base sorting-plant in New York, where they were baled and shipped to mills to be used as reworked wool, in blankets and other articles. From September, 1917, to December, 1918, this plant handled over 17,000,000 pounds of wool clippings, the total sales of which produced $5,500,000.

Wool was not only made up into clothing but it went into such knit goods as undershirts, drawers, stockings, gloves, and puttees. This branch of the war woollen-goods industry found itself confronted with a serious problem in the lack of suitable machinery, for though there were numerous manufacturers of knit goods, their mills had been devoted to the production of specialties, such as men’s union suits and women’s underwear. These concerns had, therefore, to make great changes in their machinery, and sometimes to remodel their plants, before they could knit underclothing in the sizes required for the army. Toward the close of the war every machine in the United States that could make hosiery was knitting socks for soldiers.

At one time there was a serious shortage of needles, which we had formerly obtained from Germany. When this source of supply was cut off we turned to Japan, but the Japanese needles proved anything but satisfactory: they were not properly tempered and their frequent breakage caused much loss and delay. A rumor reached the ears of the Quartermaster-General that there were 10,000,000 knitting-needles in Sweden, whereupon purchasing agents were despatched to Scandinavia post-haste. They returned a few weeks later bringing with them a million needles, which helped to relieve the situation, the American needle-makers meanwhile being pushed to the limit.

Though the production of the regulation service uniform constituted the bulk of the Manufacturing Branch’s activities, it was by no means the whole of them. It went into an entirely new field, for example, when it bought uniforms for the women nurses of the army. There was a trim little Norfolk suit of navy blue which cost the government about thirty dollars; a cotton uniform for indoor wear that cost three dollars; a long, belted ulster costing in the neighborhood of twenty-eight dollars; to say nothing of blouses made from navy-blue silk, jaunty hats of blue velour, stout tan walking-boots, and hospital shoes of white canvas. When it came to lingerie, however, the “Q. M.” balked. It permitted the nurses to purchase that for themselves.

Then there was the special clothing required for the soldiers fighting on the Siberian steppes and the frozen wastes around Archangel. These garments were designed by men who had had experience in the arctic and were intimately familiar with the peculiar conditions existing on the world’s remotest battle-line. Our soldiers in Russia were supplied with caps and mittens made from muskrat fur, overcoats of moleskin or of duck lined with sheepskin, Alaskan parkas with hoods lined with the fur of the wolf, woodsmen’s heavy knee-length socks, Canadian shoepacks, such as the trappers and _voyageurs_ wear in the Northern woods, and special heavy underwear. These outfits, which cost about a hundred dollars each, were supplied to approximately 15,000 men.

And, finally, there was the clothing for prisoners of war and interned enemy aliens. This was not manufactured for the purpose but, instead, the uniforms discarded by our own men were dry-cleaned, repaired, and dyed a special shade of green—a glaring emerald-green—so that the wearer could be distinguished as a prisoner as far as the eye could see him. I remember watching a column of German prisoners leaving the prison stockade near Atlanta one morning on their way to work. In the front rank, his red mustache bristling fiercely, was a peculiarly haughty and insolent head steward whom I had known in those days, now long past, when self-respecting persons crossed the Atlantic on German liners. He was fatter than when I had last seen him, and in his bright-green prisoner’s uniform he looked for all the world like an animated cabbage. There is a certain appropriateness in the fact that the uniforms with which we supplied our captured Germans cost the government just thirty cents apiece.

For more than forty years the woollen shirts worn by American soldiers have been made at the great Quartermaster Depot at Jeffersonville, in southern Indiana. In order to give employment to as many of those who needed it as possible, it has always been the policy of the depot to distribute the sewing of the shirts among the women of the community, so, upon the outbreak of war, there were some 2,000 sewing operatives working for the government in or near Jeffersonville. When word was received from Washington that shirts were required in enormous quantities and with the least possible delay, appeals were made by means of posters and through the press to the women throughout that region to increase the output of shirts for our soldiers. The response was as quick as it was gratifying. Women who did not need the money gave up their duties or their pleasures and turned to sewing. Soon there was scarcely a woman along that portion of the Ohio who was not, like the industrious Sister Susie, sewing shirts for soldiers. The number of operatives jumped from 2,000 to 20,000 almost overnight; the yearly output of shirts rose from 600,000 to 8,500,000. The operatives were required to call at the depot, where unmade garments, which had already been cut, were issued to them, together with the necessary trimmings and a completed shirt to be used as a guide, the garments being sewn at home and returned to the depot for inspection. In order to care for the thousands of women who came flocking into Jeffersonville to secure shirts, first-aid stations had to be established at the depot. A Sanitary Bureau was also organized and a corps of sanitary inspectors were employed to visit the homes of all the operatives to see that the shirts were being sewn under proper sanitary conditions. As a further precaution, the shirts were fumigated upon their return to the depot, thus insuring the soldier against any risk of contagion from this source. When the Armistice, was signed the Jeffersonville Depot was the largest shirt-manufacturing establishment in the world, and “The Song of the Shirt” was heard for miles up and down the banks of the Ohio.

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In supplying the army with such articles as sheets, pillow-cases, towels, gauze, denim, duck, and webbing, the Cotton Goods Branch of Purchase and Storage procured over 800,000,000 square yards of cotton textiles—enough to have covered an area four times the size of the District of Columbia. It also purchased enormous quantities of burlap for packing, for bags, and for the use of the Camouflage Service, as well as silk for flags, hat-cords, and badges. Though it was never found necessary to resort to the use of paper fabrics, the division had in its possession samples of paper cloth and articles made from it which had been captured from the enemy. These paper textiles were carefully analyzed and studied, and had it become necessary to provide a substitute for cotton, we were prepared to produce one which would have astonished the Germans.

One of the characteristics of the equipment of the European soldier is the number of articles made of leather. He has leather belts, cross-belts, cartridge-belts, bandoliers, gun-slings, map-cases, knapsacks, sword and bayonet scabbards, chin-straps, and not infrequently his head-gear is likewise made of leather. Not only is all this leather costly, but it is stiff, heavy, cracks easily, and requires constant work to keep it clean. Owing to the extreme scarcity and the almost prohibitive cost of leather, its use was confined in the American Army to saddles, bridles, harness, leggings, and Sam Browne belts, virtually all other articles of equipment formerly made of leather, such as cartridge-belts, packs, bandoliers, scabbards, gun-slings, pistol-holsters, and the like, being made of cotton webbing. To supply the army’s enormous demand for these articles it was necessary to convert to the manufacture of this cotton webbing many plants which had theretofore been engaged in the production of hose, cotton belting, and asbestos brake linings. All the plants thus adapted to the emergency manufacture of webbing were dependent on purchased yarns which they had to secure in the open market. In the South, where most of this yarn was produced, the securing of power was a very serious problem. Many of the mills depended upon electricity generated by water-power, so when this water-power ran very low it was necessary for the government to step in and allocate the available power among the mills working on army contracts according to the most pressing needs. Then there was the inevitable question of labor. In many of the plants employees had to be given special courses of instruction before they could produce the new materials on which they were set to work. In the South, particularly, much trouble and delay was caused by the question of child labor and the working hours for women and minors, for in its later contracts the government inserted clauses insisting on the observance of certain regulations designed to benefit and protect the workers. In some instances contracts were returned to the government because of this child-labor clause, whereupon orders were issued virtually compelling the mills to produce the goods called for, whether they wanted to or not. I doubt if any government in the world, while engaged in a life-and-death struggle, would have found time to show such solicitude for the weakest and least influential of its people.

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Next to wool, leather was the most essential of the raw materials required for the equipment of our soldiers, the Quartermaster Corps purchasing 33,000,000 pairs of shoes, 6,500,000 pairs of gloves, and nearly 3,000,000 leather jerkins, in addition to enormous quantities of harness, saddlery, and other equipment. It was early recognized, therefore, that it was as vitally necessary to save every foot of leather as it was to conserve every pound of wool, so, in pursuance of this policy, the Hide and Leather Control Board was formed. This board not only put a check on the use of leather for non-military purposes by restricting the variety of styles in civilian shoes and by similar measures, but it guaranteed an adequate supply of leather to those manufacturers engaged on army contracts. It also maintained a small army of inspectors to examine the leather at the tanneries as well as the finished products of the shoe, clothing, and harness factories, thereby guaranteeing the quality of the material and frequently improving it. Generally speaking, no action was taken which affected the hide or leather business without calling into consultation the members of the particular trade concerned and coming to an agreement with them as to the quality and price. This procedure, which was followed throughout the war, did much to eliminate all friction and misunderstandings, and enormously speeded up production.

Hanging always over the heads of the board was the menace of a leather shortage, and its members lay awake nights devising plans by which such a calamity could be averted. To illustrate the seriousness of the situation, it was estimated in July, 1918, that in another twelvemonth something like 13,000,000 hides would be required for the use of the army alone. As this is the entire output of hides in the United States, it was realized that were the war to continue through the winter, there would be no leather left in the United States by spring. Faced by this critical situation, the board called to its aid the foremost tanners, shoe and harness manufacturers in the country, and it was due to their services in checking up the figures submitted by the trade, in keeping down the manufacture of non-essential articles, in unearthing thitherto unsuspected sources of leather supply, and in introducing more economical methods of cutting, that during the latter months of the war the army rarely lacked for leather equipment. I have already told how great economies in the consumption of leather were effected by the substitution of cotton webbing in the manufacture of certain articles. During the second spring of the war the women of America suddenly found that they were no longer able to obtain the extremely high-topped boots which were then the fashion, while men had to content themselves with plain instead of “wing” tipped shoes. The leather thus saved was used in the manufacture of footwear, gloves, and jerkins for the men who were offering their lives in the trenches in order that the people at home who wore the high-topped boots and the wing-tipped shoes might continue to live in safety. Many persons have wondered why officers serving in the United States were not authorized to wear the Sam Browne belt. I can give them one of the reasons. It was because the necessary leather could not be spared for a purpose which was, after all, purely ornamental. As a result of this admirable system of supervision and control the Quartermaster Corps was not only able to fill with reasonable promptness the requirements of our troops overseas, but when the Armistice was signed, it had enough leather equipment, either manufactured or in process of manufacture, to supply an army of 5,000,000 men.

In none of its innumerable forms of endeavor did the Quartermaster Corps more strikingly demonstrate its genius as a manufacturer than in the design and production of the army shoe. Before the war our soldiers wore a machine-sewed shoe of russet calf lined with duck, very similar to civilian footwear of the better grade. Shortly after the beginning of hostilities, however, the War Department adopted a new and much stouter shoe. This new model had a much heavier upper than the old one, with the flesh or rough side out and the grain side in, and with no lining, while, instead of a single sole, as in the old shoe, two heavy soles were used, the bottoms of which were thickly studded with hobnails. But even these, formidable in appearance as they were, did not prove stout enough to stand up under the incredible wear of trench warfare, so there was finally developed the so-called “Pershing shoe.” These really should have been classified as tanks instead of shoes, for they could go anywhere, they could withstand any amount of use or abuse, and they were, literally speaking, armored. The “Pershing shoe” has three outer soles which are fastened to an inner sole of outer-sole quality and thickness, first by nailing, then by screws, and finally by stitching with heavy linen thread; the toe is reinforced with a moulded steel plate; both sole and heel bristle with hobnails, and, as a final touch, the heel has a heavy steel horseshoe around its edge. It was by long odds the best shoe worn by any army. In fact, no such footwear was ever produced before. The pity was that it did not reach our troops sooner.

Before we had been at war a month a most troublesome fact came to light in connection with the question of shoes. It was found that the old schedule of sizes was entirely wrong and did not begin to meet the new conditions. In the old army the individual men were carefully selected according to a certain standard of measurement, and it was, therefore, a simple matter to fit them with shoes from a comparatively restricted range of sizes. But the millions of men who were called to the colors by the draft represented all types except the physically defective. In the ranks of the recruits a 250-pound policeman who had spent the better part of his life on his feet would be found shoulder to shoulder with an anæmic-looking little clerk who had spent most of his life perched on an office-stool. A man whose feet had always been incased in the flexible pumps of a professional dancer might find himself rubbing elbows with a cow-puncher who wore high-heeled Mexican boots and who had always lived in the saddle. As the raw levies began to round into shape at the training-camps, it was found that clerks, professional men, and others who had not been accustomed to working in the open air developed in size with amazing rapidity. This was particularly true of the men’s feet, for after a few long hikes with a full pack, a recruit could not squeeze his feet into shoes of a size which he had theretofore worn with perfect comfort. This meant that an entire new series of models and lasts had to be made, running up to unheard-of sizes, as, for example, 17-EEE! The standard sizes of the army shoe at present range in length from 5 to 15 and in width from A to EE, thus making it necessary to carry each style of shoe in _one hundred and twenty sizes_.

Now, no article of clothing can cause such acute discomfort and so quickly affect a man’s disposition, and consequently his morale, as an ill-fitting shoe. The Germans were the first to appreciate the importance to an army of caring for the men’s feet, and with their customary thoroughness took steps to prevent foot-trouble from the very beginning of the war. I remember remarking, when I was with the Ninth German Army during the first weeks of the invasion in 1914, that following each regiment of infantry was a huge motor-truck carrying a complete pedicure establishment—a sort of chiropodist’s office on wheels. Whenever a soldier developed a bunion or a corn or an ingrown nail, whenever his boots pinched his toes or chafed his heel, he fell out of the ranks and waited for the pedicure wagon—I don’t remember the German name for it—to come along, climbed up, sat in a chair, and the attending chiropodist tended his feet and, if necessary, issued him another pair of boots. “The feet of the soldiers?” said a German general to whom I mentioned the matter. “They no longer belong to them after the Empire goes to war—they belong to the Emperor. A soldier is no more permitted to abuse his feet than he is to abuse his rifle. They must always be in condition for marching and for fighting the Emperor’s battles.”